William Etty, R.A. (1787-1849) Venus and Cupid oil on panel 16½ x 21½ in. (41.9 x 54.6 cm.)
Elhanen Bicknell (1788-1861), Herne Hill, by 1849 His posthumous sale; Christie's, London, 25 April 1863,lot 63 (bought for 98 gns. by Bicknell's son Henry Sanford Bicknell (1818-1880) Mentioned in his will dated 8 August 1879 Burcombe House
Dr Waagen, Art Treasures of Great Britain, London, 1854, vol ii, p. 353. ('Of singular grace, and unusually careful completion'). Anon., 'The Bicknell Collection',The Times, 27 April 1863 ('A splendid piece of colouring').
London, Society of Arts, William Etty, R.A. [retrospective exhibition], 1849, no.30., lent by Elhanen Bicknell.
William Etty depicted the subject of Venus and Cupid on various occasions, deploying several different compositions. The present work, from the collection of Elhanen Bicknell, is particularly close, both in composition and handling, to Etty's smaller Venus and Cupid, painted on canvas, at York Art Gallery (Dennis Farr, William Etty, London, 1958, p.155, no. 91, and pl.35a). The general disposition of the two figures is similar and both works have a background of red curtain to the left and landscape to the right. The figure of Cupid, however, is much closer to that of the child in Etty's A Family of the Forests, shown at the Royal Academy in 1836 and now also at York Art Gallery (Farr, p.145, no.57, and pl. 68). Intriguingly, this latter picture was purchased in 1867 by Henry Sanford Bicknell, who had bought the present Venus and Cupid at his father's posthumous sale of 1863.
Farr suggests that the York Venus and Cupid was the painting exhibited at the British Institution in 1830 with this title, as the frame measurements given in that year's catalogue would fit. The same might be argued for the present work. However, the catalogue of the Etty retrospective exhibition at the Society of Arts in 1849 states that a Venus and Cupid lent by C.W. Wass (no.35) was the work shown at the British Institution in 1830, while indicating that the Bicknell picture, also in the 1849 exhibition (no.30), had not been previously been shown and was painted in 1842. If this date is correct, then the Bicknell painting is probably later than the York Venus and Cupid, which Farr assigns to the early 1830s: the York picture would thus have provided the model for Bicknell's, rather than vice-versa.
The present Venus and Cupid, perhaps bought direct from the artist, was one of three paintings by Etty belonging to Elhanen Bicknell and included in the posthumous sale of his 'renowned collection of English Pictures and Sculpture' at Christie's, London, on 25 April 1863 (sales of watercolours and works in other categories were held in the days following). According to Alexander Gilchrist (Life of William Etty, R.A., volume 2, London, 1855, p.203), Bicknell 'promoted' George Thomas Doo's engraving of 1849 after Etty's The Combat. Having made a fortune in the Pacific sperm-whale fishing industry, Elhanen Bicknell was among the leading collectors of contemporary British art in the mid-nineteenth century, best known as one of Turner's most important patrons.
We are grateful to Richard Green for examining this painting.

William Etty, R.A. (1787-1849) Nymph with fawn dancing oil on panel 27 x 20¼ in. (68½ x 51½ in.)
offered by the artist to the dealer Richard Colls for 45 guineas, without the frame, in 1835. George Townsend Andrews; Christie's, London, 23 June 1849, lot 49 as 'Dancing Nymph and Faun' (310 gns to the engraver Charles Wentworth Wass). Thomas Horrocks Miller (scion of a Lancashire cotton-manufacturing dynasty) by 1889. Thomas Pitt Miller; Christie's, London, 26 March 1946, lot 37, (22 gns to Alfred Aaron Wolmark) Alfred Wolmark, presumably until his death in 1961. with The Roy Miles Gallery, London. Private Collection, London. The early owner George Townsend Andrews (1804-1855), a prominent York architect specialising in railway buildings, was a friend of Etty and an important contemporary collector of his paintings, owning some thirty five works, which were sold in 1849 and 1851. Alfred Wolmark (1877-1961) was, of course, a considerable painter and it is interesting that, later, he should have owned this work. It is plausible that he himself designed the present frame.
A. Gilchrist, Life of William Etty, R.A., 2 vols, London, 1855, vol.2, pp.29-30, 79, 337 D. Farr, William Etty, London, 1958, p.150, no.75 (i).
London, British Institution, 1835, no. 200. London, Society of Arts, William Etty, R.A. [retrospective exhibition], 1849 (CXXIV), lent by G.T. Andrews (not named and for a limited period only, as the exhibition ran from 9 June to 25 August but the picture was sold at Christie's on 23 June that year). London, Royal Academy, Old Masters, 1889, no. 47, lent by T. Horrocks Miller.
Two versions of this composition are known: the present work on panel and another on canvas and slightly larger at 29 in. x 24 1.2 in. (74.5 x 62 cm.) in the Fairhaven Collection at Anglesey Abbey. Although their main figures are similarly composed, there are significant variations between the two, most notably in the colouring but also in certain details. In the Fairhaven picture, the female figure lacks the leopard-skin girding, which is so prominent in the present work; the foreground still life is different; there are three - as opposed to two - figures in the mid-distance and they are more obviously Bacchic; and there is a classical temple in the far distance.
The two paintings can be associated with the following works exhibited by Etty: Nymph and young fawn dancing, framed measurements 36 in. x 30 in. (91.5 x 76 cm.), exhibited at the British Institute in 1835 (200), and A bacchante and boy dancing, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1838 (97). Dennis Farr catalogued the present picture (no.75 (i), then in the possession of Alfred Wolmark) as the 1835 British Institute exhibit, and the Fairhaven picture (no.75 (ii), repr. pl.50a) as the 1838 Royal Academy exhibit. His justification was that the 'greater elaboration' of the Fairhaven picture 'suggests that this might be the later painting'.
A problem arises when trying to reconcile this with Alexander Gilchrist's reference in his Life, vol.2, p.82, to 'the Black-haired Girl with Poppies of his [Etty's] Diary, transformed into the Bacchante and Boy Dancing of the [1838] Academy-Catalogue'. It has also been suggested that the frame measurements of the 1835 British Institute picture would fit the present picture more easily - allowing approx. 5 in. on all four sides - than the Fairhaven work, which would only allow approx. 3 in. on all four sides, and which seems rather mean for the period. The two works are clearly not in their original frames. Moreover, the Royal Academy catalogue of 1889 states that the picture, then belonging to Thomas Horrocks Miller, was painted in 1835. Additionally, now that it is possible to compare the two paintings, the present work has much more immediacy in its handling than the Fairhaven picture (the latter's sky apart), indicating that it is surely the prime version.
Thus, the work has been catalogued as Nymph with young fawn dancing, as titled in the 1835 British Institute catalogue; the later variant is probably the 1838 Royal Academy exhibit A bacchante and boy dancing. Though it would seem that the subject matter is not specifically related to any classical text, is clearly Bacchic in theme, as indicated by the grapes and discarded empty flagon in the foreground, and the leopard skin, which alludes to the beasts that pulled Bacchus's chariot. As such, it forms part of a series of works produced by Etty in the later 1820s and through the 1830s on Bacchic themes, and has several echoes of Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne acquired by the National Gallery in 1826. Incidentally, the leopard skin was probably based on a studio prop; a similar detail appears in Farr's no. 238, p.176, pl.47b, 'Reclining male nude (bacchanal)'. Under that catalogue entry Farr refers to 'A Bacchante "lying on a panther's skin" ' in the Wethered sale, Christie's, London, 7 March 1856, lot 132.
We are grateful to Richard Green for preparing this catalogue entry.